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Writing an integrated curriculum


In the 2006/2007 school year, Pudong Middle School began planning to integrate Language Arts and Social Studies by the 2007/2008 school year. As you may have already seen, the reasons for that are outlined on the Home page, in the slides and audio file of the presentation on curriculum given to parents in 2007.
In writing that curriculum, our primary goal was to tailor all instruction towards the development of the required Expected Student Learning Results (EAGLES), basing plans on the standards and benchmarks for both LA and SS. To this end, using the principals of Backward Design, we followed the following steps:
  1. Identifying and defining the standards and benchmarks for the 2 subjects
  2. Identifying and defining the EAGLES
  3. Creating themes that were relevant to the standards and benchmarks, the EAGLES, and the nature of SAS students in Grade 8
  4. Creating enduring understandings for each theme
  5. Creating essential questions to assist students in exploring these
  6. Deciding how students would demonstrate their understanding of these within each theme (see Wigginsand McTighe's 6 facets of understanding)
  7. Building curriculum content within this framework

6 facets of understanding
Students truly understand when they:

  • can explain
  • can interpret
  • can apply
  • have perspective
  • can empathize
  • have self-knowledge




Resources


Backward Design

'Planning: Principles of Backward Design' , Department of Education, Tasmania, http://www.ltag.education.tas.gov.au/Planning/models/princbackdesign.htm